What's A Wedding?
by Echopath
Summary: In which Peridot finds a wedding magazine, and decides that that's something she would want to do with Lapis Lazuli.
1. White Magazines Are More Interesting

**Chapter 1**

The sun woke Peridot up before her alarm did. Peridot hated waking up. She hated it even more knowing that she could have slept for another (Peridot squinted at her alarm clock, her eyes adjusting to the light shining through the window) fifteen minutes before she had to actually get up. Maybe if she could get up and close the blinds? No, by the time she got back into bed she would be properly awake, and then it would have been for nothing.

With a groan, Peridot reached over and grabbed her phone from the bedside table and opened her notifications. Two new Tumblr followers, and a text from Lapis. Peridot smiled slightly, and opened up the text from Lapis.

 _Hey babe, I went ahead and grabbed breakfast before I went over to the Temple, feel free to grab some cereal or whatever if you want. I also opened the blinds for you to make sure you woke up in time for the mission ;-P_

Peridot turned around to look at Lapis' side of their bed, and sure enough, it was empty. Turning back to her phone, she replied.

 _First off, Fuck you. Secondly, I'll be there in about half an hour. 凸(｀△´＋）_

Pushing herself out of bed, Peridot pulled on her robe (an anniversary/birthday gift from Steven), and dragged herself out of the bedroom.

The apartment Peridot and Lapis lived in wasn't big, just one bedroom, one bathroom, and a living room with a kitchen separated only by a breakfast bar that was never used for breakfast. But it had a little balcony that looked over Rehoboth Bay, so it made it seem a bit larger, but none of this was going through Peridot's head while she shuffled into the bathroom. She was thinking about the magazine she had noticed when she had gone to the grocery store with Steven the other day.

* * *

The Food Mart on Main Street wasn't very large, and was designed appealed more to a tourist's needs than a local's, but it was the closer than the large grocery in the next town over, so they did most of their shopping there. Steven was sitting in the cart, flipping through a comic book he had brought with him for entertainment. Pearl, who was in charge of pushing the cart, was comparing the price of two different peanut butters to their nutrition facts. Peridot was standing next to the cart, wishing she was as smart as Steven to bring entertainment. Finally, Pearl made her decision, she placed the worthy peanut butter next to Steven, and they continued on.

They passed by the bakery, where Pearl picked up two loaves of bread, whole wheat for the Temple, white for Lapis and Peridot's apartment. It was around this time that Steven finished his comic book. They moved onto the produce section.

"Hey Peridot, do you want to come with me to see if they have the next issue of Cat Fighters?" Steven jumped out of the cart, Pearl had been comparing oranges for the last two minutes.

"I would love to," She replied, and followed Steven over to where they kept the magazines.

The magazine section was located next to the entrance, it was a modest size, and carried both magazines, paperback novellas, and comic books. Steven made a beeline for the comic section and began searching it for Cat Fighters. Peridot wasn't really interested in comics very much, so she wandered over to the magazine section. Most of the magazines were covered in half-dressed celebrities, with bold and overly colorful headlines screaming how to lose such and so amount of weight in such and so amount of days, and prompting readers to pick them up with tantalizing information on the latest celebrity relationships and other such gossip. Peridot couldn't care less.

She was about to wander over to the novella section when a magazine caught her eye. Unlike the other magazines, the cover of this magazine was mainly white. A young woman in a white ballgown looked up from the cover, a smile on her face, flowers in her hands, and a white veil obscuring her eyes. Golden Letters above the woman said "Wedding Now". Peridot picked up the magazine and flipped through it. All of the articles seemed to be about the same thing, something that intrigued Peridot.

"Hey Steven?" Steven looked up from his search, "What's a 'Wedding'?"

"Huh?" Steven looked over Peridot's shoulder at the magazine, "Oh. A wedding is when two people get married." Steven looked over at Peridot, who still had a look of confusion on her face, so he continued, "Marriage is when two people promise to spend the rest of their lives together. A wedding is the ceremony that makes it all official, it's really fancy and everyone dresses up. There's music and cake and stuff. And then afterwards the people that got married wear rings on their left ring finger to show that they're married to each other."

"But why would you want to have a party for your relationship? It just seems a bit conceited if you ask me," Peridot replied, flipping to another page in the magazine, it was an article about affording marriage and setting a budget, "And expensive."

"I guess some people don't think that way," Steven turned to the next page, there was a picture of a man and woman kissing in front of a large crowd of people, everyone seemed to be really happy.

"Oh there you two are," Pearl pushed the cart over to them, "I'm all ready to check out now, do you guys have everything you need?"

"All set!" Steven said, holding up a copy of the comic he had been looking for, "You coming Peridot?"

Peridot was about to set the magazine back down where they had grabbed it from, but she hesitated. "Yes, I'm coming," she replied, putting the magazine under her arm.

* * *

Peridot stepped out of the shower, making sure to dry herself off completely before phasing into her clothes. Her outfit wasn't dissimilar to how it was before she had joined the Crystal Gems. The only differences being that instead of a diamond on her chest and knees, she had stars, her leotard was now more of a skirt, with her leggings still acting as leggings, also her hair was messier.

Now clean, Peridot grabbed her star-shaped backpack that she kept her keys, phone, wallet, and other essentials in during missions and put on her platform boots (the best limb enhancers she could get on this planet). Taking one quick look around the apartment, Peridot locked the door on her way out.


	2. Don't Shoot Large Tentacle Monsters

**Chapter 2**

The Temple was about a fifteen-minute walk to the Temple from the apartment, so one of the first things Peridot invested in was a scooter and a motorcycle license. The scooter wasn't anything overly special, it was an older model, she had gotten it at a used car dealership for a couple hundred dollars, and had fixed it up using gem technology so it didn't have to run off of that archaic fuel liquid or whatever Greg called it. It was also a pretty teal color.

Peridot parked the scooter at the Big Donut and walked across the beach to the Temple. Peridot had always liked the Temple, if she was more poetic, she would point out how it was a metaphor for the relationship between gems and humans, and the new she, Jasper, and Lapis had gained. But to Peridot it was just the place where all of her friends lived.

The screen door clattered to a shut behind her as she entered the house. Jasper was sitting on the couch, reading a book that Connie had given her. Garnet was also sitting on the couch, but she was just staring blankly at the wall. Pearl and Amethyst were both in the kitchen, arguing loudly about an empty jar of peanut butter.

"Hey Peridot," Peridot looked up Steven's loft, where Steven was packing his cheeseburger backpack with any sort of provision he could possibly need, with Lapis watching him from his bed.

"Hi Steven," Peridot replied, going up the steps and sitting down next to her partner.

"Hey babe," Lapis gave Peridot a peck on the lips in greeting, "You have a good morning?"

"I didn't appreciate you leaving the blinds open," Peridot replied, Lapis smirked coyly, "But besides that I have no complaints."

"Okay!" Steven exclaimed, as he crammed one last box of band aids into his backpack, "We're all set!"

Everyone in the temple heard this, and made their way to the warp crystal. "Jasper, Pearl, Amethyst," Garnet said, gesturing to the large crystal in the middle of the room, "You three go first, we'll follow after you." Peridot was relieved that they had started going in two groups, the warp crystal was not nearly large enough for all seven of them, and Peridot hated how they always ended bunched together.

Once the first group had gone, Garnet, Lapis, Peridot, and Steven stepped onto the crystal. Lapis stood next to Peridot, taking her hand in hers. Peridot blushed, she still wasn't too used to being touched, much less hand holding, but she knew Lapis enjoyed it, and in all honesty she didn't mind.

They warped onto some sort of tropical island. It would've been an absolute paradise is it wasn't for the absolute destruction that surrounded them.

An explosion went off above them, and everyone threw themselves off the warp crystal as whatever had exploded fell towards them. It turns out the exploded thing was Amethyst, who was a little singed, but mainly pissed. With a large roar, Amethyst pulled two new whips out of her gem and jumped back into battle.

"It was at the warp crystal when we arrived," Pearl told Garnet, who fell back a little to explain the situation to them. Garnet didn't say anything, but put Steven down, summoned her gauntlets, and charged into battle, Pearl followed.

Peridot looked up at the corrupted gem. It was huge, for one thing. It was dark brown, almost black, in color, with large, thorny tentacles protruding out of its round body, and at the tip of each tentacle was a beak like thing that appeared to be able to shoot fireballs.

"Heads up!" Jasper yelled as she shot past Lapis and Peridot, who ducked down. Jasper ran at the monster, intent on ramming it with her helmet, but didn't get far before a tentacle swiped her away, up into the foliage of the island, most of which seemed to be burned to a crisp.

Lapis summoned her water wings and flew over Steven, blocking several fireballs as she went, leaving Peridot by the warp crystal. Reaching into her backpack, Peridot pulled a small laser gun she had made out of some spare parts she had scavenged from the kindergarten and anywhere else she was able to get Homeworld technology. Aiming carefully, Peridot fired a few rounds of energy at the monster, leaving a few oozing dents in its flesh. It let out a deafening screech, and a barrage of tentacles in the directions of the shots.

"Shit," Peridot didn't have time to move, she didn't even have time to close her eyes and accept her fate, not either mattered much, because a wall of water washed over the monster and herself. A current pushed her away from the corrupted gem, and she felt two arms wrap around her as Lapis lifted her out of the water, taking flight above the destruction.

The monster had collided with the forest on the island, leveling most of it, and also incapacitating it for a moment. The rest of the gems took this opening to attack the monster. It gave last one, small spasm before it poofed.

Lapis placed Peridot gently on the ground, "Could you not shoot the thing when you're all by yourself?" Lapis chided, turning to face Peridot.

"I thought I was out of range?" Peridot replied, she did her best to play off the fact that she had made a mistake, but then she saw the look on Lapis' face, "I'm sorry..."

Lapis let out a breath Peridot didn't even know she had been holding, a small smile of relief fell across her face, and she pulled Peridot into a tight embrace. "Don't scare me like that…" Lapis whispered into her ear, Peridot held onto Lapis a little tighter. A silent promise.

"Are you two done being all gooey?" Jasper interrupted the moment, she had the gem in a bubble and a very salty look on her face, "I just wanna go home and take a shower. I smell like a burnt cheese quesadilla."

"Same," Amethyst groaned, she was covered head to toe in soot, "Minus the shower." The two hugging gems agreed, and pulled apart.

* * *

Back at the apartment, Peridot stepped out of the shower, not that she really needed it, it was just relaxing after a tough battle. Lapis was sitting at the couch, playing with a bubble of water that was suspended in the air. In the bubble was a small, golden fish.

"Where did that come from?" Peridot asked, examining the fish.

"It must have gotten caught in the water wings," Lapis replied, "I only noticed it swimming around in my extra storage a few minutes ago." Peridot shuddered at the thought. Just in case they ever had to fight in a place without water, Lapis constantly drank water, and instead of urinating it back out, she kept it in her "extra storage".

"Well, what do you want to do with it?" Peridot asked, trying not to imagine what having a live fish swimming inside her would feel like.

Lapis looked at her girlfriend, Peridot was reminded of a large dog that knew exactly what it wanted, "Can we get an aquarium?" Peridot was not surprised.

"Let me get my keys…" Peridot sighed. As she turned to the coat rack, she felt Lapis catch her shirt, keeping her where she was.

"Hey, Peridot?" Lapis said softly, rubbing the fabric between her fingers, "I love you."

Peridot felt something rise up in her, something warm, that made her feel like every part of her was going to implode. "I love you, too," Peridot replied. Lapis pulled gently on Peridot's shirt, and she leaned towards Peridot in a requesting manner, and Peridot was happy to oblige.

It wasn't the most romantic kiss they had ever had, or the most passionate, but it was in that kiss that Peridot remembered the white magazine tucked in her bedside table, and she imagined the two of them kissing in front of their loved ones, and everyone was happy for them, but not nearly as happy as they were. Peridot wanted that.


End file.
